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Opposition Takes Bihar Voter Roll Revision to Supreme Court as Distribution Nears Completion

NGOs and opposition parties have petitioned the Supreme Court over harsh document requirements and a compressed timeline to verify voters; the Election Commission reports 38 lakh form submissions.

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Overview

  • Phases one through three have seen booth-level officers distribute semi-filled enumeration forms to about 87 per cent of Bihar’s 79 million electors, yielding over 3.8 million returned forms.
  • The SIR drive involves roughly 78,000 booth-level officers, 154,000 booth-level agents and around 400,000 volunteers to facilitate submissions and assist vulnerable groups.
  • Voters absent from the 2003 rolls must submit one of 11 specified documents—excluding Aadhaar and MNREGA cards—between June 25 and July 25 to prove citizenship.
  • The Association for Democratic Reforms and social activist Yogendra Yadav have filed separate Supreme Court petitions challenging the SIR order as arbitrary and disenfranchising.
  • CPI(ML) Liberation’s Dipankar Bhattacharya has called for mass protests starting July 9, and RJD leader Rabri Devi has urged voters to refuse document checks to block the revision.